A Pen Without a Lathe

I wanted a pen for myself as I am a woodworker I thought it would be wise to make a wooden pen. Unfortunately, this led me to the new problem of not owning a lathe. But I have made a point of never allowing a lack of tools to stop me from making something. I am going to make a pen without a lathe.

I started by ripping down some White Oak to three-quarter inch by 3 quarter inch pen blanks. after some experimentation to find the correct drill bit for the end kit shaft to fit into, I was able to bore the holes through the pen blanks.

I wanted to shift to be a hexagon so I found a nut with the appropriate size and used it as a pattern to trace on one end of the pen blank. This gave me a point to which I can plane it down without going over that line. I found that if I put the nut on a bolt and then put the bolt in the hole it would Center it giving me equal distances from the sides of the hexagon to the center of the pen blank.

Next, I put the pen blank into the vice and started planning it down to the lines that I marked with the none. This took about 16 minutes per blank but went fairly quickly as it was an enjoyable task.

After shaping them I needed to round the end slightly so that they would join the pen pieces smoothly. I did this with a file counting how many strokes I made on each side so that there would be an equal amount of rounding on each side.

The finish on the pen is wipe on poly. I lightly sanded in between each coat with 400 grit sandpaper, and then finished off with a light coat of poly.

To press the pen together I used my bench vise.You have to be careful to make sure everything is perfectly lined up before pressing it, but with a little care, it works very well.

In the end, I am extremely happy with how this came out. A lot of joy to make, and a great pen I will enjoy for years to come. If you want to see more here is a link to the video showing the whole process.